Stephanie’s Wicked Awesome Words

In his article “You’ve Read the Novels (Now Read the Footnotes),” William Grimes discusses the importance of annotated texts and whether or not footnotes are essential to the understanding of a story.  He starts off by telling of his misinterpretation of the plant furze, evident in Thomas Hardy’s “Return of the Native.”  Though his understanding of furze did not alter his understanding of the piece, it also did not enable him to create the picture that Hardy envisioned him to.

Grime believes that footnotes are important because they help to put the reader into the time and culture in which the piece was written.  For example, he talks about Austen novels, which were written during the 18th and 19th centuries.  If a person were to read them and not understand the minute details, he would probably be able to understand the novel.  However, to be able to truly grasp the meaning and put himself in the mindset of Austen and the setting of the novel, he should know what all social elements mentioned in the text mean.

…reanimating the details does enrich one’s reading.  They can illuminate and sometimes enlighten.  Most facts are merely dated equivalents of present-day realities – one form of currency for another – but others help explain character and motivation.

While Grime believes that some annotation may be burdensome and even take away from the enjoyment of a text, he also firmly believes that footnotes can greatly improve one’s reading experience.

You may be wondering how this article fits into my topic of YA versus classic literature or into our class.  However, I believe that there is a clear connection.  Some critics argue that classic literature should not be taught because the language as well as the cultural elements are unclear to students.  For example they would say that an Austen novel is over 200 years old and has no connection with students today.  However, introducing annotated copies of works into a secondary English classroom could greatly improve students’ understanding of a work.

Earlier this semester I read Jane Austen’s Persuasion for a British Literature course, and I relied on footnotes to help me through the text.  It allowed me to understand elements that normally would have gone right over my head.  I truly believe that if students reading classic literature had footnotes to clear up certain issues, they would have a better time understanding.  They may not necessarily enjoy reading any better, but at least they would grasp better social norms of the time and perhaps even draw comparisons between life in the 18th or 19th centuries and life in the 21st century.

“You’ve Read the Novels (Now Read the Footnotes)”

William Grime: 16 March 2007

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So far I have been looking at the debate between young adult and classic literature from the perspective of the teacher. In her article “Dark Themes in Books Get Students Reading,” Kathleen Kennedy Manzo offers the other side of the debate from the perspective of the student. She interviews students who have experienced both YA and classic literature in the classroom, and most say that they prefer the YA literature. It is more accessible to them, not only the language but also the issues and themes. They find they can relate to a lot of the content, whereas in older novels they have a hard time doing so. The themes are modern and edgy, and although some may be rather dark, they reflect many of the issues that young people today must deal with.

Although many teachers applaud this decision to incorporate new literature into the English curriculum, there are still a great deal of teachers and parents who are against it.

Nevertheless, the use of popular literature has run up against traditionalists, who fear it will dumb down the curriculum, and parents who object to the controversial themes that characterize many of the selections.

Many of these newer novels that students are reading explore such topics as eating disorders, self-inflicted pain, and sexual assault. Parents are opposed to their children reading them, and some even believe that these themes will put ideas into their children’s heads. Certainly, such topics may be challenging and difficult for students to read because they are not pretty themes. However, they are very real issues that young people experience everyday. Students will be able to connect with them better, and perhaps reading this dark, edgy YA literature will help foster their desire for reading.

In addition, many of the pieces of classic literature that are studied in the classroom explore controversial topics. “Romeo and Juliet” explores the lives of two young people who kill themselves out of love. To Kill a Mockingbird discusses racial issues and a young woman being raped. “Oedipus” talks about a man who kills his father and marries his mother, then gouges his own eyes out when he learns the truth. Therefore, one cannot point a finger at modern literature for having inappropriate content when classic literature is just as bad.

This article has changed my views a bit on teaching YA literature versus classic literature. It seems to me that if students hate reading the classics so much and it turns them off to literature forever, why continue doing so? Perhaps pieces of classics can be offset with pieces of YA. Students can receive a better mix of books and themes. From personal experience, the books my literature circle group read this semester would’ve been ones I would’ve enjoyed reading in high school. I would have probably even read them on my own, because they were more applicable to what was going on in my life.

Therefore, teachers should begin to listen to their students about what they want to read. If it’ll be the difference between a student loving to read and hating to read, then there is no reason why YA literature should not be taught.

“Dark Themes in Books Get Students Reading”

Kathleen Kennedy Manzo: 30 March 2007, Education Week

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A recent study done shows that high school students today are enrolling in harder classes and are earning better grades, but surprisingly enough are achieving poorer skills in reading. Performed by the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the survey looked at transcripts from 26,000 high school students across the country. The article attributes this phenomenon of higher grades and lower reading skills to grade inflation, different grading standards, and improved student performance. Students in 2005 were shown to have reading skills considerably worse from those of students tested in 1992.

The share of students lacking even basic high school reading skills – meaning they could not, for example, extract data about train fares at different times of day from a brochure – rose to 27 percent from 20 percent in 1992.

Ironically, students today have been taking more hours of instruction and have been studying more than students in 1990 had. In addition, grade point averages have raised a third of a letter grade higher.

The Bush administration, in an effort to support the renewal of No Child Left Behind legislation, is using this data as proof that more testing needs to be done in the classroom. Students are not performing at the levels that they should be, and the government believes that testing them more is the solution to this problem.

I wonder if perhaps it is this increase in standardized testing that has led to the decline in students’ reading skills. So many classrooms today teach to the test instead of teaching students how they need to be taught. Students are forced to read as a sort of fact-finding mission, for that is what these tests will require them to do. Perhaps if testing was halted in the English classroom, reading skills amongst high schoolers would increase.

I think that this issue is one that could be addressed with material from Wilhelm’s You Gotta BE the Book. Wilhelm works directly with students who have difficulties reading and helps them to overcome those boundaries.  He takes creative approaches to teaching literature to students, such as incorporating drama and art.  He does not teach to the test, but rather offers students a rich learning experience, believing that they will then be able to tackle a standardized test better.

In a statement concerning the report, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said,

“Students must be challenged to succeed, and schools must prepare them with the tools necessary to thrive in college and a competitive 21st century workforce.”

Yet constantly testing students does not equal constantly challenging them. If schools hope to succeed at the task of truly teaching their students, then they need to get back to the basics. To improve reading skills, schools need to teach great literature and in turn instill a love of literature in their students. Students should be encouraged to dive into a piece of literature and to salvage meaning from it, rather than to read a text simply to answer the recall questions at the end. If this is done, then perhaps reading skills will improve. If students are taught to enjoy reading, then perhaps they will want to improve their skills at it.

This issue of reading skills dropping addresses young adult and classic literature nicely. For those students who are having more difficulty reading, perhaps they can take an English class that teaches mainly young adult literature. As a result, they will be able to enhance their skills with texts that are more accessible. For those students who prove their ability to read well, they can take an English class that tackles the harder, classic literature.

“Grades Rise as Reading Skills Drop in H.S. Study”

Diana Jean Schemo: 22 February 2007

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In an article I just read, there is controversy in England over proposals recently made by Education Secretary Alan Johnson. In attempts to reform the school curriculum, Johnson wants to force 11-14 year olds to read classic literature from such authors as Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, and George Eliot. Though I am a strong supporter of using classic literature in the classroom, I also believe that certain texts are appropriate for certain age- and ability-levels. Forcing an 11-year old to read Dickens is analogous to forcing him to do calculus. It is just not suited to the talents and abilities of children at this age. In my Brit Lit class I am taking this semester, we have been studying Austen and Dickens. I find it hard to believe that texts that are challenging for college students to read and comprehend fully are sufficient to be taught in early adolescent classrooms.

In response to these proposals, Ian McNeilly, director of the National Association for the Teaching of English (NATE), said,

“It is a complete fallacy. Forcing children and teachers to study texts that are inappropriate is deeply counter-productive. It puts students off the text, the author and the subject and it doesn’t do anything for their self-esteem.”

Though children need to be exposed to excellent, classic literature, they need to experience it when they are ready to tackle the difficult language. More than likey students will learn nothing, and will leave school feeling frustrated and lacking confidence in themselves. A move such as this could even cause students to despise literature, and will thus ruin the possibility for a deep love for and interest in great works in their later lives.

Ian Brinton, who is quoted in the article, comments as to whether or not these politicians read the texts before prescribing them to children. It seems highly improbable for anyone who has read Great Expectations to finish the book and decide that it is completely plausible for an 11-year old to read it and understand everything. In instances such as these, politicians need to leave literature choice up to the teachers, as they are the ones who are in close contact with students. It is the teachers, not the people making government policies, who know what students can and can not handle. Politicians need to let them do their jobs, and they need to stick to their own jobs. This is not to say that the government should not have a say in education, for I believe that they play a vital role. However, if they want to be effective they need to understand the limits of children and play according to those limits.

A spokeswoman for the Department for Education and Skills says,

“…it’s vital that teachers instill a love of literature in young people and engage them with the best-loved writers from our history.”

There is no doubt that this is a true statement, yet we also have to consider how teachers are going to instill this love. It is not enough to hand a child Pride and Prejudice and expect him to read the book, understand it, and love it. Just as an Olympic athlete has to start small to get to such a high level, so too do students in the English classroom. Young students can still read classic literature without being too weighted down. For example, why not give an 11-year old a work by C.S. Lewis as a starting point to learn how to analyze literature and what to look for. Only after he can fully understand this, then he can read more challenging works, and eventually progress to reading Dickens or Austen.

Another plausible option that we have discussed in class is using young adult literature as a segue into the classics.  Even though I still disagree with introducing such challenging material at such a young age, going this route may make the jump easier.  For example, students could read the YA novel Jake, Reinvented as a segue into The Great Gatsby or Special as a segue into The Lord of the Flies.  Teachers could draw on the thematic connections between the two, and use the YA text to help students better understand the classic one.

“‘Dickens and Austen too complicated,’ say teachers”

The Evening Standard: 16 February 2007

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After the discussions that we have been having in class, I have decided to shift the focus of my blogs from No Child Left Behind legislation to that of literature. More specifically, I want to study the debate concerning literature taught in school, whether middle and high schools should focus on young adult literature or classic literature. There are those who believe that YA literature should be the canon, as its language is easily accessible to students and it covers topics that are interesting and useful to adolescents. On the other hand, there are those who believe that classic literature should be the canon, as its messages and merits are timeless and have been taught for so long. I tend to align myself with the latter group, although I understand the position of the former.

There is a reason that classic pieces of literature from such authors as Shakespeare, Tennyson, Austen and Dickens continue to be taught in high schools, and not simply because teachers have a fascination with boring their students. Classic literature has been able to stand the test of time and has been revered by many for its greatness – that is why classic literature is taught. Why, then, do people want to disregard it completely and to remove it from the high school classroom? It is true that many of the events, characters, and settings are no longer applicable to students today, but the messages gleaned from these works are timeless.

In his article “The tale’s the thing, for every generation,” William Rees-Mogg talks about a good story being the basis for children wanting to learn. He says that students will find interest in literature if the story and content are interesting to them, not necessarily if the work is deemed classic literature. However, he does not believe that students should not have to read classic literature, but should rather use these other pieces as segues into the classics.

“Great literature, even apart from the Bible or the Book of Common Prayer, teaches lessons…Great literature is an instructor to the young and a comfort to the bereaved.”

The great writers of the classics were masters in their craft. They knew how to write well and effectively, and how to compose pieces that would continue to instill wisdom centuries into the future. In other subjects, such as chemistry, calculus, and history, students study those people who were masters in these fields. They concentrate on gleaning knowledge from those who were the most accomplished and had the most to offer. Why should literature study be any different? Although YA literature is a good device to get children interested in reading, it should not be the main focus of study in the classroom. In general, YA literature does not have the universal appeal or level of skill that classic literature does. That would be equivalent to history teachers teaching their students only about the lives of ordinary people rather than those of people like Napoleon, Washington, or King, Jr. That would be equivalent to chemistry teachers teaching their students only about experiments conducted in high school labs, and not about scientists and discoveries that have changed the world. Classic literature has a place in the classroom, one that should be revered and never substitued with work that is simply mediocre.

“The tale’s the thing, for every generation”

William Rees-Mogg

February 19, 2007

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